Efficiently interconnecting storage networks has become a major problem for organizations as these organizations attempt to leverage legacy storage devices and, at the same time, attempt to accommodate new network protocols emerging in the industry.
Typically, a storage environment will include a number of client computing devices interfaced to one or more network routers. The network routers will include external interfaces (interfaces associated with network traffic coming into an organizations internal networks and network traffic exiting the internal networks). The network routers also include internal network interfaces (Network Interface Cards (NIC) and the associated software) designed to translate and route external network traffic within the internal networks of the organizations. These network routers can also be viewed as gateways, bridges, hubs, firewalls, and/or switches that efficiently translate, route and/or forward network traffic through internal networks and out to external networks.
Generally, the network interfaces and protocols associated with internal networks are configured to have higher bandwidth transmissions and throughput than what might typically be available with external network interfaces connections that interface with the internal network. Generally, internal network interfaces and protocols are associated with Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), and/or Fibre-Channel (FC). External network interfaces may include Ethernet, GigE, FC, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame Relay (FR), and/or Time Division Multiplexing (TDM).
Often the routers are interfaced within an organization's networks to other routers, gateways, switches, hubs, bridges, and the like. These additional routers may be dedicated to handling traffic associated with storage access, management, control, and monitoring. In a similar manner these routers have installed network interfaces along with available network protocols that are available for efficiently moving network traffic associated with storage internal and external to the organization's storage networks.
To optimize an organization's storage networks a storage-area network (SAN) can be configured. A SAN is a high-speed sub-network of shared data-storage devices, such as disk, tape, optical, and other drives. These networks are particularly advantageous not only because they spare other servers in a larger network, such as corporate intranet, from the burden of storing and managing large amounts of data, and thus allow use of these servers for other higher priority uses, but also because they facilitate data consolidation. Consolidation promotes manageability and scalability, by for example, simplifying backup, split, and/or restore procedures and by facilitating expansion of storage capacity.
Some SANs are structured so that an end user or client computer can access data on one or more target storage devices through a storage router FC interface switch. The FC interface converts data received from the storage router to a FC-compliant protocol, such as FC Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) standard, and directs the converted data via high-speed electrical or optical fibre lines to the proper target devices.
Generally, a storage router includes software that uses an implementation of the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) or Internet SCSI (iSCSI) protocol to route data packets across Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) (TCP/IP) enabled networks. iSCSI is a popular family of protocols for communicating between one or more client computers, i.e., one or more servers and one or more I/O devices, especially one or more storage devices.
Current SCSI/iSCSI operation on storage routers uses single processor architectures with an integrated FC switch, which runs the storage router software for SCSI/iSCSI operation, a GigE interface, which provides connection to an IP network for access by servers/clients, and the FC interface, which provides connection to a storage network for access to a storage device. In addition, current storage routers include High Availability (HA) and management interfaces, which provide a physical connection for high availability communication with another storage router and for managing the storage routers. These storage routers generally perform many functions, such as communicating with another storage router, management of user configuration, initialization tasks, handling error flags and crash files, processing of storage network packets and the like. Using a single processor to manage all these storage router functions generally lowers the data communication capabilities of storage routers.
Moreover because a single processor is used, each of the storage routers comprising an organization's SAN needs to have each of the available network protocols that can handle the available data formats associated with a variety of network protocols being used. As a result, any Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Trunking Protocol (VTP), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), or other protocols associated with network interfaces must be installed on each of the storage routers participating in the SAN. This means that when new protocols become available in the industry, each of these storage routers will need to be upgraded to include any new protocol desired within the SAN. As one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates, this is a time consuming, expensive, and resource intensive process, which is not desired or preferred by an organization.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved routing techniques that permit a centralized processor to have access to a set of desired network protocols, where the centralized processor can process network packets associated with its network protocols on behalf of other processors participating in a network. Thus, a desired number of network protocols do not need to be directly installed on each of the processors in order for the entire network to use these network protocols.